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I would love if you could send this podcast to your friends, share it in any parenting Facebook groups you are part of and leave me a review - thank you for listening.
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This week I talk about how we can support our children to cope with grief, death and dying. We want to protect our children from grief. It is such a difficult time if you and your family are experiencing grief, if there is a death in your immediate family, a parent, a grandparent, a close family member, a friend, someone in the community - or a much loved pet. Your child might start to ask about death or they might have some big feelings if they lose someone they love. |
In this episode I talk about how we can support our children to cope with grief, death and dying. I explore:
When children become aware of death, they often start to worry about their parents dying or grandparents.
It can be hard to know how to respond to them in a helpful way. Here are some ideas:
If your child experiences grief themselves, you want to figure out how best to support them. We would love to shelter them completely from the grief and the pain - but that often leads to confusion, misunderstandings and more problems.
In the past, children were excluded from death. They weren’t allowed to attend wakes or funerals, well meaning people would tell children it was for the best. Talk through with your child if they want to see a sick relative, or the body or go to the funeral. Children can handle these things with your support.
Instead, we can support our children to grieve loss, to feel the pain of loss and heal from it.
If you are going through grief yourself it can have a huge impact on your whole family. This is something I don’t think we recognise enough. If you lose someone and you are grieving, your child is deeply impacted too. Even if they don’t know the person who died or you never even mention it.
Children are deeply attuned to your emotional state so if you are off centre, if your thoughts are elsewhere, if you are struggling to process your own feelings of loss, then your child picks up on that stress. You aren't’ able to be fully present with them, your patience might be short - understandably so. You don’t feel playful, you don’t want to laugh or be silly. You might not have the patience you normally do to help them when they are struggling, you get frustrated and shout instead.
- When children are asking a lot of questions about death, and are afraid of you or someone else they love dying.
- How you can support a child who is experiencing grief themselves.
- When you experience a loss, the effect that has on your child and how you can support yourself and your child through a difficult time.
When children become aware of death, they often start to worry about their parents dying or grandparents.
It can be hard to know how to respond to them in a helpful way. Here are some ideas:
- Answer questions directly and honestly, don’t use euphemisms
- If you have a strong faith, you will want to share that with your child in an age appropriate way
- If you aren’t a person of any particular faith, helpful to think about what death means to you, how you make sense of it and then communicate that to your child
- “I’m not planning on dying any time soon, I plan to be alive for many many years but if something happens to me this person will make sure you are safe and taken care of”
- Acknowledge your child’s fears and worries - meet this with your calm nervous system, look into their eyes - you are safe. If you don’t feel safe, share that with them and find ways to feel calm together.
If your child experiences grief themselves, you want to figure out how best to support them. We would love to shelter them completely from the grief and the pain - but that often leads to confusion, misunderstandings and more problems.
In the past, children were excluded from death. They weren’t allowed to attend wakes or funerals, well meaning people would tell children it was for the best. Talk through with your child if they want to see a sick relative, or the body or go to the funeral. Children can handle these things with your support.
Instead, we can support our children to grieve loss, to feel the pain of loss and heal from it.
- Acknowledge the loss, it is hard, it is sad, there is nothing good about it at all
- Make space for feelings, just listen without reassuring, distracting or fixing. Allow them to feel
- Expect behaviour to go off track a lot - children don’t verbalise well
- Expect big upset over small seemingly insignificant things. All you have to do is listen.
- Offer Special Time if you can - a way for a child to process and feel close to you.
- Give your child space to process and express themselves in other ways eg. art
- Talk about the person, encourage your child to think of things to remember them by - a photo book you can look at together and allow the feelings to come.
If you are going through grief yourself it can have a huge impact on your whole family. This is something I don’t think we recognise enough. If you lose someone and you are grieving, your child is deeply impacted too. Even if they don’t know the person who died or you never even mention it.
Children are deeply attuned to your emotional state so if you are off centre, if your thoughts are elsewhere, if you are struggling to process your own feelings of loss, then your child picks up on that stress. You aren't’ able to be fully present with them, your patience might be short - understandably so. You don’t feel playful, you don’t want to laugh or be silly. You might not have the patience you normally do to help them when they are struggling, you get frustrated and shout instead.
- The best thing you can do to support your child is to find the space to grieve yourself
- Listening Partnerships are a great place to bring your grief
- Talk through the bits that were hard, whatever feelings you are feeling are normal
- Explain what is going on to the child and why you are another adult is unavailable, reassure them it isn’t their fault
- Get back to play and laugther whenever you are ready, it will help your child heal and repair from the break in your connection.